Sola Fide
by meldahlie
Summary: Why does King Caspian like fog? And what do Drinian and Trumpkin think about this? One-shot, pre-SC.


Sola fide

Why does King Caspian like fog? And what do Drinian and Trumpkin think about this? One-shot, pre-SC.

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 _A/N: It was a foggy morning. I went to look for some things that had gone missing in the fog, like the end of the garden and the other half of the greenhouse, and I met this fic!_

 _~:~_

It was the normal habit of Lord Drinian of the Dawn Treader to stride back along the path from the quayside, his slightly rolling seaman's gait marking him out as the captain and admiral he was. But today, Drinian wasn't striding anywhere. A thick sea-fog had rolled in overnight, and a man could barely see his hand in front of his face. Drinian reckoned the only way he was going to know when he had reached Cair Paravel was when he walked smack into the castle gate.

He frowned, and inched forwards, peering as the fog swirled and massed into strange shapes and seeming figures which melted again in an instant. Another one of them swirled up grey before him – and turned suddenly into the solid mass of King Caspian going the other way.

Both men flung out their hands against the collision, catching hold and crashing and staggering on the narrow path. "Drinian!" exclaimed the King, at just the moment Drinian exclaimed "Your Majesty!"

The King laughed, a queer sounding noise in the blanketing fog. "And now I expect we shall both say: 'I thought you were a mist wraith!'" He squeezed Drinian on the shoulder, as if he wished to check his friend was, in fact, solid.

"It's as thick as pitch, today," Drinian agreed. "And fouler."

"Oh, I don't know." Caspian looked round at the grey-white nothingness surrounding them. "I like fog."

Drinian bit down on his first-to-mind comment that liking fog was a strange thing for a sea-farer. He himself had been down to the quay because the Galmian trading ship sighted yesterday had still not put in, and was presumably lying somewhere offshore, at anchor and fog-bound and completely stopping any Narnian shipping going out for fear of crashing into it. Fog was frankly a nightmare – _liking_ it was strange beyond Drinian's comprehension. But the king was being a little strange, lately. Uncertain palace gossip about it hummed through Cair Paravel, with no-one quite certain what to think since Caspian had finally forbidden any more quests in search of the lost Prince Rilian.

With his own failing in the matter, Drinian hesitated to even think of it. But there was no doubt, the king had seemed a little – different, in these weeks since.

"If your Majesty likes fog," said Drinian, summoning up a smile he did not feel, "you couldn't ask for a better one than this."

The king looked at him. "Are you worrying about my safety down on the quay?" He clapped his hand again on Drinian's shoulder, as the older man looked down for want of a tactful yet truthful answer. "Nay, my friend, I am not about to cast myself into the sea, even by accident. I only go to the eastern shore, but the path through the trees was too lost in mist for me to follow it this morning without repeating my old exploit of knocking myself witless on a branch. So I am walking 'round."

Caspian started forwards again, and Drinian guessed, from the slight pressure of the king's grasp on his shoulder before he had let go, that he, Drinian, was wordlessly invited to come too. He fell into step beside Caspian, and they went in silence through the swirling mist.

"I like fog, these days," said Caspian after a little way, "because I cannot see the horizon, and yet I know it is there. It helps me to remember. The Utter East, the Edge of the World, Aslan's country–" He smiled almost cheerfully. "They're all there. I just can't see them."

Drinian bit his lip. "The Queen?" he asked painfully.

Caspian nodded. "And my son."

Drinian looked up sharply. "You think he's dead? That- that-" He broke off, unable to go on.

"Drinian," said Caspian slowly and deliberately. "If I have to tell you that I will _not_ lose my friend too over this matter one more time, it will start to rival the number of times I have had to tell the Bulgy Bears not to suck their paws in Council meetings."

"But-"

"No," said the King, shaking his head gently. "Not 'but'. Rilian may be dead, or he may not – but what falls to me is hold on to the fact that wherever he is, he is in Aslan's care, just as I was when I rode into that falling tree." Caspian gestured round at the fog. "We can't see where we're going – but He can. In the mean time, we just have to go on, one step at a time."

Drinian took another careful step, thinking. "That's why you've forbidden more searches?" he asked, unheeding of the rather _non-seq_ _u_ _i_ _t_ _u_ _r._

Caspian nodded. "We must wait for the fog to lift."

So simple. Too simple? Drinian frowned, and looked sideways at the man beside him – but Caspian was looking right back, with almost a smile. "No, Drinian," he said. "It is not simply a mist-screen to hide my pain. It is a fact, as certain as that the horizon is there though I cannot see it from the eastern shore. And also, no: I was not the one who thought of these thick grey pea-soups like that. Trumpkin did." Caspian chuckled. "Then he said he really didn't know why I was worrying. Quite aside from Aslan, if there was one knight in the realm fit to entrust Her Majesty to for a while, it was That Mouse!"

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End file.
